


And the Lady Comes

by Ghostinthehouse



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 20:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13084773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostinthehouse/pseuds/Ghostinthehouse
Summary: "The Lady is a Very Mysterious Character, and I wouldn't mind seeing exploration of Who She Is and What Is Her Purpose."





	And the Lady Comes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coralysendria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralysendria/gifts).



On screen, Jane is standing beside her latest archelogical dig dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, with all the sun-worn lines of her face in lively animation. Her rose quartz engagement ring catches the light as she gestures, explaining what they've found. ("It once belonged to an old lady I knew," he'd told her, "and I think she would like you to have it." She'd said, "Thank you, Will," and kissed him.)

In the room, Will bends again to drop a kiss on her silvered hair as he heads out to work in the gathering gloom, between the roosting birds. ("Someone has to be the watchman," he'd said, when he got the job at the British Museum.) Jane watches him go, unchanged by the years except for the crowsfeet creeping across his amiable round face. They see each other less and less as the years pass, reaching out through layers of secrets to clasp each other's hand. The happiness remains.

Jane turns off the tv, stands a little stiffly - years of jumping in and out of pits have taken their toll - and steps away. The modern world fades around her, replaced by stone and wood, and a fireplace flanked by high backed chairs. Time is a looser, elusive, thing these days, and memories are strong. Even memories she hasn't made yet. Archeology weaves one thread between past and present. Loving bonds weave another; the warp and weft of her life across time, with the ring as her shuttle.

Across the hall, one wall reforms into a pair of high doors, and a thread of music fills the air. A man steps through, tall, with a shock of white hair, shadowed eyes, and the craggy face of an eagle or a hawk. She knows him, or the bond knows him. Loving bonds, stronger than anything else on earth. ("Old One," she says in greeting. "Lady," he responds.) They need no names. She has always seen him in dreams. How do you tell the dreamer from the dream? When you step away, into and out of it. Their clothes shift to match the era they stand in, and they study each other, knowing and not knowing, with secrets on their tongues. Then the doors reform, and they turn as one to watch the young boy enter.

He brings the candle over to finish the circle. (She says, "Thank you, Will.") She sees the wash of joy on his face at her smile and the sound of her voice, even if their years together haven't happened yet, for him. Memory and imagination, drifting apart, losing time in the gap. ("Who are you," he asks, and she stops Merriman before he can close the loop.) This boy has so far to go before he becomes her Will, and so much to learn. ("Perhaps it would be best for now, Will, if you were to go on thinking of me as - the old lady.") The ring blazes with Light, and he fades with the hall. 

She wakes drained, with tears on her cheeks. He wipes them away with a gentle thumb, the ache of losing her haunting the back of his eyes. ("I dreamed of Gumerry," is all she tells him, and he holds her tight.) She traces the old burn on his arm, her thumb as gentle as his, and asks no questions.

Jane, Jana, Juno, Jane. The names melt into each other, the way time and memories melt into each other, and she goes wherever she finds a bond to take her. Merlin always has his Nimue one step behind and beyond him. ("Madam," he says, too many times, "take care." She listens to the tone and not the words.)

There is music, carrying her, and she would know Will's voice anywhere, but he isn't the one she's come to see, not this time. She sees the girl, so young, and meets her eyes. She waits, as the ring weaves a new bond into an old memory. ("You and I are much the same...") More the same than she knew then. Less the same than she knew now. A pattern of dominoes, come full circle at the last. ("Some things there are that may be communicated only between like and like.") Remember. Only remember, and be brave. Bravery is about going on, not about lack of fear, and she remembers what she faced, but she cannot stay to help.

The front door opens, and a tall man steps through, with a shock of white hair and dark glasses shadowing his eyes, more raven than eagle. Jane blinks and smiles, and doesn't scream. ("I was just thinking of you!" she tells Bran. He laughs.) It's been a long time, and no time since she saw him. What right has she to return so often? Loving bonds though time, pulling her hither and thither, to where she has been before and not yet. But this meeting, this was the deepest thing, the one without which there would be no others. She is tired but Will, her Will, needs her, in all the years of time, and she does not want to let him down. Once was too often. ("The Lady? Where is the Lady?") She missed the making and breaking of the land the first time, she won't do it the second time, or the third, no matter how tired she gets, or how lost to time.

When Will comes home from work in the morning, Jane scatters seed for the birds, and they stand together to watch them eat. Robins, sparrows, a wren. He holds her close as if he can keep her there forever, as if he is losing her to her memories and to time. She meets the wren's gaze. It hasn't been hunted, not here, not yet, and it is time for one last message from the Circle, for the Circle. ("It was intended, from the beginning, that you should carry the last message.") She takes his hands in hers as the wren taps at the window. "Will, listen," she says. "The mountains are singing..."


End file.
